Lisken Van Pelt Dus: National Poetry Month 2026

From the archive: Danusha Laméris

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This summer in 2026, we are sharing some of our favorite episodes from the archives! Poetry Medicine for the Soul first began in 2020, in partnership with the Stockbridge Library in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. With the Stockbridge Library, over a hundred episodes were recorded over four seasons. This episode features Danusha Laméris [https://www.danushalameris.com/] from Season 1, and was originally recorded on recorded on January 6, 2021. Danusha Laméris, a poet and essayist, was raised in Northern California and born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother.  Laméris is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize and was honored by the 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. She served as the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. Some of her work has been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, Orion, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. Her poem Small Kindnesses has been translated to multiple languages, quoted in O Magazine, turned into a short film, and was recently read by actress Helena Bonham Carter.   Her first book, The Moons of August (2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Her second book, Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series), was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Award and recipient of the 2021 Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Her third and newest collection, Blade by Blade (2024)  is now available through Copper Canyon Press.  Laméris has been on the faculty of Pacific University’s low residency MFA program. She founded Litfield [http://www.litfieldwriters.com/], an online writing community where she currently teaches. Learn more at: www.danushalameris.com [https://www.danushalameris.com/] This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/ [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] in Apple podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poetry-medicine-for-the-soul/id1774547435], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/4l3NEXUb2V9u9sPtL9jX20?si=ed2731c1689245d5], or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Jessica Piazza: National Poetry Month 2026

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features Jessica Piazza reading "Easter" by Jill Alexander Essbaum. You can read "Easter" on the Poetry Foundation website. [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/54272/easter-56d2346d77163] Jessica Piazza [https://www.jessicapiazza.com/] is the author of three poetry collections: Interrobang, This is not a sky, and Obliterations (with Heather Aimee O'Neill), as well as the children's book Olivia Otter Builds Her Raft. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Jessica now lives in Los Angeles, where she is a professor at the University of Southern California. She co-founded Bat City Review (Austin, TX) and Gold Line Press (Los Angeles, CA), and curates Poetry Has Value, which focuses on the intersections of poetry, money and worth. She is the recipient of the Amy Clampitt residency, and is working on a new poetry collection and a novel. Her poems have most recently appeared in Best American Poetry, The Baltimore Review, The Cincinnati Review, Smartish Pace and 32 Poems. When she's not writing or teaching, Jessica works with Literary Affairs, facilitating book clubs for avid readers all around Los Angeles. Learn more at www.jessicapiazza.com [https://www.jessicapiazza.com/]. Born in Bay City, Texas, poet and editor Jill Alexander Essbaum was educated at the University of Houston, the University of Texas, and the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest. Essbaum’s debut collection of poems, Heaven (2000), won the 1999 Bakeless Prize. Other collections include Harlot (2007), Necropolis (2008), and the long-poem chapbook The Devastation (2009). Her work has been included in the anthology Best American Erotic Poems (2008). Essbaum’s novel Hausfrau (2015) was a New York Times Bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Huffington Post, and Shelf Awareness, and nominated for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. The recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Essbaum has served as an editor for the online journal ANTI- , the print journal The National Poetry Review, and has also edited for the Nanopress Project, whose aim is to “pioneer a new poetry publishing model that brings together, on a one-time basis, an independent editor’s judgment and gravitas and a poet’s manuscript.” Essbaum teaches in the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert’s low-residency MFA program and lives in Austin, Texas. This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/ [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] in Apple podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poetry-medicine-for-the-soul/id1774547435], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/4l3NEXUb2V9u9sPtL9jX20?si=ed2731c1689245d5], or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Julie Danho: National Poetry Month 2026

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features Julie Danho reading "Theory of Perfection" by Carrie Fountain. You can read "Theory of Perfection" in the AGNI literary online magazine [https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/theory-of-perfection/]. Julie Danho [https://www.juliedanho.com/]’s poetry collection, Those Who Keep Arriving, won the 2018 Gerald Cable Book Award from Silverfish Review Press. Her chapbook, Six Portraits, received the 2013 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Award, and her poems have appeared in publications such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Bennington Review, New Ohio Review, and Poetry Daily. She has been awarded fellowships from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the MacColl Johnson Fund. You can find more of her work at juliedanho.com. [https://www.juliedanho.com/] This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/ [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] in Apple podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poetry-medicine-for-the-soul/id1774547435], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/4l3NEXUb2V9u9sPtL9jX20?si=ed2731c1689245d5], or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

Amanda Russell: National Poetry Month 2026

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features Amanda Russell [https://poetrussell.wordpress.com/] reading “What I Like About Poetry” by Ellen Bass. You can read "What I Like About Poetry [https://aprweb.org/poems/what-i-like-about-poetry]" on The American Poetry Review Website. Amanda Russell [https://poetrussell.wordpress.com/] is an editor at The Comstock Review. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Lily Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain and Gulf Stream Magazine. She is the author of Barren Years (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Processing (Main Street Rag, 2024). She is a member of the Fort Worth Poetry Society [https://fwpoets.org/] and the Calling All Poets Series. She lives in the DFW Metroplex with her husband, two kids and a labrahound named Lilly. Learn more at poetrussell.wordpress.com. [https://poetrussell.wordpress.com/] Ellen Bass [https://www.ellenbass.com/]’s most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Her other poetry books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poems appear  frequently in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks!, and her nonfiction books include the groundbreaking The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. A Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University. Learn more at ellenbass.com. [https://www.ellenbass.com/] This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/ [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] in Apple podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poetry-medicine-for-the-soul/id1774547435], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/4l3NEXUb2V9u9sPtL9jX20?si=ed2731c1689245d5], or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com

James Davis: National Poetry Month 2026

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share, explore, and celebrate poetry, hosted by John Gillespie. This National Poetry Month 2026 bonus episode features James Davis [https://www.jamesdavispoet.com/] reading "Juvenilia" from his forthcoming collection (2027) Bottoming for Dummies. You can read "Juvenilia [https://www.benningtonreview.org/issue-ten-davis]" in the Bennington Review. James Davis is the author of the poetry collection Club Q, which won the Anthony Hecht Prize. His poetry has been featured on NBC News and CBC Radio and anthologized in two installments of Best New Poets (2011 and 2019). Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Bennington Review, Five Points, Literary Matters, Salamander, The Sewanee Review, and other notable venues. Originally from Colorado Springs, he lives in Denton, Texas, where he teaches English at the University of North Texas. Learn more at www.jamesdavispoet.com. [https://www.jamesdavispoet.com/] This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website for more episodes: https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/ [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul [https://poetry-medicine-for-the-soul.simplecast.com/] in Apple podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/poetry-medicine-for-the-soul/id1774547435], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/4l3NEXUb2V9u9sPtL9jX20?si=ed2731c1689245d5], or wherever you listen to podcasts.  Get in touch with us at: info@poetrymedicineforthesoul.com